Changes

The only thing that is really constant in life is change.  That applies to our families as well.  The diagram below is an incomplete genogram of our family – incomplete in the sense that the marriage relationships of our children’s spouses siblings are not represented.

Walk down through the diagram and think through the number of relationships that exist and the impact those relationships have on each individual.  Then imagine each of our children engaging in each of their spouses’ or in the case of our fourth child fiancé’s family systems (remember that the sibling’s marriages are not depicted).  The number, complexity, and impact of those relationships alter every relationship in our immediate family.

Then at the bottom you see the emergence of the third generation.  All of the relationships prior impact the parents and thus the children.

Now go back to the top.  As each layer of the diagram develops my wife and my relationship, our roles, our relationship with each of our kids changes.

To complicate this further I could extend the diagram to the generations that created my wife and I.  Those relationships continue to play a part in our interaction with each other, our children, and everyone else on the diagram.

There are only two constants in the last 36 years.  One is the continual change that this represents.  The other is our relationship with Christ.  (My wife pointed out a third, our commitment to each other.)

It occurs to me that navigating life – just from the standpoint of surviving a family – I would not want to do that apart from the one who created us.